A Rock and a Hard Place
by a.lakewood
Summary: Summary contains major spoilers and speculation for ep 5.18 Point of No Return and is listed before the story.


**Title**: A Rock and a Hard Place  
**Author**: alakewood  
**Warnings**: Spoilers and speculation for 5.18 _Point of No Return_. Spoilers for _Jump the Shark_ and _Pilot_ by default. Definitely AU, because I'm sure the episode will be nothing like this.  
**Rating**: PG-13 (for language)  
**Word** **Count**: ~1500 (so much for his being the ficlet I'd planned for)  
**Summary**: Adam's resurrected and learns the last seven years of his life have been based on lies. Dean and Sam agree that Adam's been brought back simply to force Dean into becoming Michael's vessel.  
**Disclaimer**: As always, I own nothing.

**oxoxo**

How they'd gotten to where they were, Adam didn't know. Felt like he didn't know much these days at all.

Bits and pieces of what had just happened began to defragment and reassemble themselves into something almost understandable, but the only thing that had made sense was when, wherever they were before this, the guy who'd held him upright – whose protectiveness he'd felt as fiercely as his mother's – said, "He's my _brother._" And something deep inside his bones, infused with his marrow, told him this was the truth.

Adam turned his gaze towards the other three men in the room – there was a man a few years older than his dad, scruffy, harried, and wheelchair-bound; another that appeared to be a couple years older than the man that claimed – no, that _was_ his brother, dressed like a businessman; and a third only a handful of years older than Adam himself – his eyes mirrored the concern in Adam's brothers, but there was something else there, too. "What the Hell's going on?" Adam asked, voice weak and rough.

The four other men exchanged glances and Adam's brother was the first to speak. "Are you okay? What do you remember?" He was avoiding the question, but Adam remembered the protectiveness he'd felt when they were in that gilded room and figured the man was a little more concerned with Adam's well-being than he was with answering Adam's question.

Again, the other three exchanged looks, the businessman and the one in the wheelchair left the room, but the third remained, hanging back by the table stacked with books.

"I, uh, I'm okay. I think," Adam began, but was interrupted by a coughing fit.

"Sam, wanna get him a glass of water?" It was phrased like a question, had the right inflection, but there was something in the way he said it that completely embodied his father. There was no doubt in his mind that this man was also John Winchester's son.

Sam returned with a cold glass of water and handed it to Adam. "Anything else, Dean?" he asked with a cocked brow as though he were used to being given orders. Adam recognized the bond between the two and realized that he had _brothers_ and that he wasn't nearly as alone as he'd always felt.

Dean shook his head and turned his attention back to Adam. "What do you remember?" he asked again, moving to sit on the couch near Adam's chair.

Adam took a long drink from the glass and settled further back into the cushions. "I don't know. It doesn't really make sense – like I was dreaming or hallucinating or something. Maybe I was drugged." He shrugged a shoulder, his gaze moving from Dean to Sam and back. "I think I was attacked. All I really remember clearly is the pain. I felt like I was gonna die."

Sam and Dean shared one of those in-the-know kind of looks. Like they were communicating psychically or something.

Adam shook his head emphatically. "No. You're not serious." Fragments of what happened – the thing that looked like his mother, but _wasn't_, attacking him, biting him, telling him horrible things about his father, then tearing open his stomach and eating the things inside while Adam was still _alive_ - flashed like still images in his mind. "That's crazy." It was his mother's line from what seemed like a scripted argument Adam had overheard between his parents nearly every time his father came home.

"Adam," Dean said gently, the same voice their father would use before he'd say something that Adam didn't want to hear but needed to accept – like he was leaving. Again.

"What? You really expect me to believe I was attacked and _killed_ by...what? A _zombie?!_"

"It wasn't a zombie," Sam told him. "It was a ghoul."

"Oh, because that makes it sound less nuts."

"No, but it's the truth."

"You've been- you've been dead for a year," Dean said. "I saw it. Your body, I mean. We-" He cleared his throat. "You were dead."

"Suppose that happened – that I died," Adam started. "Then why am I back? _How?_"

"The angels-"

Adam abruptly stood from the couch, laughing with utter disbelief. "You're _insane._ This is all insane. Ghouls and angels? You guys need to have your heads checked." He headed for what he hoped was the front door and went outside, Sam and Dean on his heels. His stomach kind of twisted at the sight of the Impala in the driveway in front of him. He _knew_ that car. He turned back towards Dean.

"Look, I know it's all hard to believe, but we're not lying to you. Dad probably never told you anything about what he _really_ did – why he could never stick around – and it was because of this. This is what he did. Dealt with all the crazy shit that's not supposed to exist, but does."

Adam sat heavily on the top porch step and stared at the car. "It was all a lie." He'd begun to suspect that John wasn't really a mechanic when he was fourteen. Sure, John could fix anything under a car's hood, but Adam had seen his father's hands – they looked nothing like his friend Logan's dad's, who'd worked at Carl's Repair. They weren't permanently stained with oil, there was no black grease caked under his nails. No, instead, John's knuckles were flecked with hundreds of tiny scars, hands almost always bruised, like he'd been in a million fights. And that, Dean was telling him, wasn't far off the truth. "So...Dad wasn't a mechanic."

"Not since 1983."

"What happened in '83?"

"That's when our mother was killed by a demon," Sam answered.

"A demon?"

"Yeah. Demons, angels, ghouls, zombies – every myth and urban legend you've ever heard probably has some kind of truth to it."

Adam nodded slowly, letting his gaze skim over the Impala's sleek lines. "So where's Dad?"

"Dad, um, Dad died. About three and a half years ago. Adam, if we would've know you were out there-"

It felt like that thing – that _ghoul_ - was tearing him open all over again. "Dad's...he..."

"I don't know what to say. I'm sorry."

Adam just tried to concentrate on breathing, his eyes still focused on the Impala. "How? What happened?"

"Long story, short?" Dean began. "The same demon that killed our mom got him, too."

"I, uh, guess that's why he couldn't answer a single call I ever made. Didn't make it to graduation." He idly picked at the wooden stair beneath him. "God, my _mom_. She loved him. Waited for him every time. And, I don't know. Maybe he loved her, too. Just not enough to stay."

"I'm sorry," Dean said, putting a tentative hand on Adam's shoulder.

They were all silent for a long stretch of time, a chorus of frogs and crickets welling up in the darkness of the field beyond the house. "What happened earlier? I mean, you said I died and, obviously, I'm here, but I don't remember anything that happened between the attack and that room with the gold paint."

"That was Heaven. Like, it's lobby or something. Zachariah, who's an angel and a grade A _dick_, resurrected you to be Michael's vessel."

"Like the archangel Michael?"

"Same one." Dean took a seat beside him on the stairs while Sam moved around to lean against the banister. "It's supposed to be me." He looked up at Sam. "Only the one who starts it can end it, right?" His gaze returned to Adam. "The apocalypse. I started it. Lucifer was released from Hell and he needs to be stopped."

"By Michael."

"Yeah. And I'm supposed to be his meat-suit." Dean shook his head. "But I kept telling him no. I guess that's why they got you. It's something in Dad's bloodline."

"I can't."

"You won't have to."

"That's probably why Zach resurrected him, Dean," Sam said. "Isn't that the Winchester M.O.?"

"I was going to agree to it, anyway."

"But this way, he knows you won't back out of it. If Adam becoming Michael's vessel is the only other option..."

Dean sighed, shaking his head. "The I guess I don't have a choice, do I? There's no alternative here." He stood from the steps and looked down at Adam. "I don't know what's going to happen to you once I agree to Zach, but you should be safe here."

Adam turned and watched Dean stalk past Sam and into the house. "What's he gonna do?"

Sam shook his head, gaze following after their older brother. "Whatever he has to."


End file.
